GP Counselling in Primary Care/ Staff Counselling Service/ Shrewsbury Sixth Form Counselling Service

Annual Report 2004/2005

The GP counselling Service provides counselling to GP surgeries in Shropshire for Shropshire County PCT and Telford and Wrekin PCT.
The Service is provided by:
· One full time Counselling Services Manager
· One part time Senior Counsellor (temporary, developmental post), 0.48wte
· 20 part time Grade 3 counsellors, 9.15wte
· One part time Grade 3 counsellor/ liaison worker in Diverse Cultures, 0.53wte
· One Grade 3 A@C, 0.64wte

The Staff Counselling Service provides counselling to staff employed by: Shropshire County PCT, Telford and Wrekin PCT, The Princess Royal Hospital, Telford and the Staffordshire College of Health.
This service is provided by:
· 4 part time Specialist Counsellors, 0.42 wte.

The Shrewsbury Sixth Form Counselling Service provides counselling to students at the Shrewsbury Sixth Form College. As well as one to one counselling the counsellor offers the students various workshops on subjects such as ‘Dealing with Exam Stress’ and ‘Assertiveness’.
The service is provided by:
· 1 part time Specialist Counsellor for one session per week, 0.11 wte.

Clinical Activity

The GP Counselling Service received 2,550 new referrals
The counsellors provided 7,504 consultations in 42 surgeries
This can be broken down into:
· Shropshire County PCT – 1,583referrals, 4,255 consultations in 24 surgeries.
· Telford and Wrekin PCT - 967 referrals, 3,249 consultations in 18 surgeries.

The Staff Counselling Service received 75 new referrals
The contracted counsellors provided 405 consultations and approximately another 100 consultations were provided by volunteer counsellors, at two sites: Chaddeslode House, Shrewsbury and Dawley, Telford.

The Shrewsbury Sixth Form College received 11 new referrals in the first 8 months.
The counsellor has provided 57 consultations at the college in the first 8 months.

The Counselling for Diverse Cultures Service in Telford and Wrekin received 32 new referrals.
A separate report breaks these numbers down in more detail.

Service User Involvement

Service users continue to be involved with the recruitment of staff for the service as members of the recruitment panels. As members of the Strategy Meetings held monthly they are also involved in planning and changes to the Counselling Service.

Research and Effectiveness

The GP Counselling Service continues to research the effectiveness of counselling offered using a goal attainment scale. Results of this remain positive with around 98% reporting some improvement, a separate report is available.

The Staff Counselling Service also researches the effectiveness of the service offered using a similar scale. Again results are positive and reported on separately.

Risk Management

Counsellors for all three services receive regular supervision and staff training.
All GP Counsellors receive group supervision twice a month as well as individual supervision of at least an hour a month, with some counsellors receiving more depending on their work load and experience. All supervision meets BACP guidelines. Any counsellor providing specialist counselling or supervision themselves such as counselling for Diverse Cultures, receive specialist supervision.

Education and Staff Development

All counsellors receive training following the bi-monthly service meeting generally of a workshop type requested by them. Topics have included: Issues around Sexual Health; Clients who drink; Referring to Eating Distress Service; Referral for CBT and Service User Involvement. All are eligible to take part in department led training and to apply for training which is supplied by others.
Two counsellors are currently studying to become supervisors and another is about to embark on this training. Four counsellors are attending a top up course provided by Confide.

Primary Care Integration

Contract continues with Telford and Wrekin PCT. More sessions are required to make the service equitable across the area. Some surgeries have populations exceeding 10,000 but only have one session of counselling per week. Contact with Carolyn Freeman (GP lead on Mental Health) and the commissioners mean that the PCT is aware of the situation and more funding is being requested.

The three year contract with Shropshire County PCT has completed its first year. Again there is inequity across the area with surgeries that have historically had counselling for many years faring better. The PCT are fully aware of the situation and again are bidding for extra funding to remedy the situation. Meetings with the PCT occur twice yearly to discuss the contract and quarterly meetings are also held so that all the counsellors can attend and meet with other Primary Care Counsellors who provide part of the service.

A guideline leaflet was drawn up and distributed to every GP and Practice Manager in Shropshire advising on how to refer and what the various parts of the department offer in terms of Talking Therapies.

Challenges

· Many of the counsellors continue to work under extreme pressure with large waiting lists.
· The counsellor/liaison worker working with Diverse Cultures in Telford continues to wait for funding to expand her work to include group work. A plan for this has been submitted to the commissioners.
· To make the referral process easier for clients and referrers. Work has started on this with a pilot project set up in Shrewsbury area to help with referrals from CMHTs.

Margaret Newton